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The Market's 10 Best Stocks Revealed

And how they can help you profit today.

That's why I find myself looking back at the end of each year. I want to know the names of the best stocks of the past decade, and what we can learn from them.

Incredibly, the market's 10 best stocks teach a clear lesson -- and it's the same lesson year after year after year.

See the bestTake a look at this year's list:

Company

Return, 1998-2007

Jan. 1, 1998, Market Cap

Hansen Natural

19,449%

$16.5 million

Asta Funding

7,856%

$3.1 million

Celgene

6,472%

$129.0 million

Apple

5,937%

$1.7 billion

Comtech Telecommunications

4,189%

$11.3 million

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters

3,389%

$24.7 million

Daktronics

3,294%

$23.1 million

Clean Harbors

3,209%

$15.8 million

Innodata Isogen

3,013%

$3.1 million

Immucor

2,893%

$70.0 million

Data from Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's. Includes only U.S. stocks listed with verifiable stock-price histories on major exchanges.

Be the bestHansen Natural remains the top stock. It held that honor last year, as well as the year before that.

And although the retailers from last year's list have dropped from the top 10, they've been replaced by names such as Asta Funding and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, which drive home the exact same takeaway!

Buy the bestThis list makes one key investing lesson explicitly clear. If you want to buy the best stocks of the next 10 years, you need be looking at stocks today that are:

Obscure.

Ignored.

Small.

Those traits characterized these 10 best stocks when their remarkable runs began, and it's the same lesson we see over and over again. Ten years ago, Green Mountain was a boutique name from Vermont with more than $40 million in annual revenue. Today, it's a more than $450 million-per-year business that counts McDonald's and ExxonMobil as customers.

Even Apple wasn't a big name back at the beginning of 1998. Although Steve Jobs had just returned to help restructure the company, it was years away from the iPod or iPhone. Most of the market had lost interest in the stock.

Big ain't the bestBut look at how many Wall Street analysts are searching for market-beating gains in Apple today. Thirty-six analysts cover the company, even though it has become a $118 billion behemoth.

Where were they 10 years ago?

They were covering mid- and large caps -- the stocks with enough volume and liquidity to be worth Wall Street's time. But look at how the 10 best of these performed over the past 10 years:

Company

Return, 1998-2007

Jan. 1, 1998, Market Cap

POSCO(NYSE:PKX)

1,610%

$2.5 billion

Qualcomm(NASDAQ:QCOM)

1,197%

$3.5 billion

PotashCorp

991%

$4.5 billion

Rio Tinto(NYSE:RTP)

936%

$16.2 billion

Sasol

898%

$6.3 billion

Canadian Natural Resources(NYSE:CNQ)

883%

$2.1 billion

Suncor Energy(NYSE:SU)

855%

$3.8 billion

UnitedHealth

812%

$9.4 billion

MGM Mirage(NYSE:MGM)

833%

$2.1 billion

Exelon(NYSE:EXC)

803%

$5.4 billion

Not bad, but not nearly as good. So you don't need to play that game. Make serious money by finding stocks today that, again, are:

Obscure.

Ignored.

Small.

Start small in 2008Uncovering these winners also happens to be our goal at Motley Fool Hidden Gems. Rather than track Apple, we're following the likes of Nuance Communications -- a company whose voice-recognition software has the potential to drive the next technology boom.

Yet even Nuance -- a $3 billion company -- is probably too big to be one of the market's 10 best a decade from now. That's why we also highlight Tiny Gems -- companies capitalized at $200 million or less.

To look at all of the small cap-stocks we're recommending today, click here to try Hidden Gems free for 30 days. You may not have heard of our companies, but we think that's exactly the point.

This article was first published Dec. 26, 2007. It has been updated.

Tim Hansondoes not own shares of any company mentioned in this article. Nuance Communications is a Hidden Gems pick. Apple and UnitedHealth are Stock Advisor selections. UnitedHealth is also an Inside Value pick, and the Fool holds shares of it. Sasol is a Global Gains pick. POSCO and Sasol are Income Investor recommendations. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.